Essay  on  Bibliography 

and  on  the 
Attainments  of  a  Librarian 

By 
Parent,  the  Elder 


Translated  by 
Mrs.  Schuyler  Van  Rensselaer 


The  Librarian's  Series 

Edited  by 
John  Cotton  Dana  and  Henry  W.  Kent 

Number  Four 


Woodstock  Vermont  The  Elm  Tree  Press 
1914 


A 


^.' 


,  f> 


y 


V 


^4 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

All  we  know  about  the  author  of  the  following 
address  is  what  we  may  gather  from  the  essay,  and 
that  is  little  enough.  He  was  a  teacher  of  history  in 
some  college  or  school,  probably  in  the  École  Cen- 
trale du  Département  de  la  Nièvre,  whose  professors 
he  addresses  as  colleagues.  We  might  be  led  to  guess 
that  he  was  a  librarian,  as  well,  because  only  a  phil- 
osopher, or  a  bookseller,  or  a  librarian  would  take 
the  trouble  to  arrange  in  a  neat  little  chart  so  much 
of  human  knowledge  as  is  found  here;  and  only 
a  French  librarian  of  the  early  nineteenth  century, 
when  the  whole  social  fabric  was  mad  over  systems 
of  every  kind,  would  have  had  enthusiasm  enough 
to  address  a  group  of  students  of  history  on  such 
a  subject.  Indeed  there  is  no  biographical  ref- 
erence to  Parent  l'aîné  anywhere,  so  far  as  we 
know,  except  a  brief  note  which  may  be  construed 
into  one,  in  Peignot's  article  Système  bibliograph- 
ique, in  his  Dictionnaire  raisonné  de  bibliogie;  and 
this  would  not  be  worth  mentioning  except  that  it 


298970 


iv  Essay  on  Bibliography 

shows  that  there  really  was  such  a  person.  No  one 
would  have  doubted  the  fact  if  Barbier  in  his  Dic- 
tionnaire des  ouvrages  anonymes  had  not  treated  the 
work  as  anonymous,  and  had  not  boldly  ascribed  it 
to  one  Jean-Félicissime  Adry,  a  quite  forgotten  libra- 
rian of  the  Oratory  in  Paris,  the  editor  of  a  long  list 
of  books,  and  writer  of  several  volumes.  Peignot 
says: 

"Ce  que  je  viens  de  citer  est  tiré  d'une  petite 
brochure  très  intéressante  que  le  citoyen  Parent 
vient  de  publier,  sous  le  titre  Essai  sur  la  Biblio- 
graphie et  sur  les  talens  du  bibliothécaire.  Je  l'ai 
déjà  citée  à  l'article  Bibliothécaire." 

This  would  seem  to  show  that  Peignot  knew 
Parent,  and  had  communication  with  him  about  the 
classification,  thus  giving  the  lie  to  Barbier,  who  at 
once  becomes  a  lesson  to  the  careful  cataloguer.  It 
must  be  said  in  his  extenuation,  however,  that  Bar- 
bier  may  not  have  seen  la  petite  brochure,  because, 
rarissima  today,  it  may  have  been  rare  enough  not 
to  have  fallen  into  his  hands. 

Parent  would  seem  to  us  to  have  been  a  librarian, 
not  alone  because  of  his  absorption  in  bibliography, 
as  witnessed  by  this  book,  and  the  nota  bene,  at  the 
end  of  it  :  "  Cet  essai  sera  suivi  de  l'histoire  char- 
actéristique  de  la  Bibliographie  chez  toutes  les 
nations  ;  dupuis  les  quipos  de  l'Amérique,  jusqu'à 


Introductory  Note 


l'immortelle  collection  de  l'Encyclopédie  " — a  prom- 
ise unluckily  never  fulfilled — but  also  because  of  his 
wise  counsel  on  the  duties  of  the  members  of  this 
profession,  and  his  multitudinous,  superficial  refer- 
ences to  authors  and  personages,  which  few,  except 
those  who  have  easy  references  to  books,  would 
know.   His  knowledge  is  of  the  librarian  kind. 

So  much,  or  so  little  for  our  author. 

And  the  value  of  the  book,  it  may  be  asked, 
wherein  does  it  lie  ?  How  does  his  "  new  "  system 
of  Classification,  as  Peignot  calls  it,  differ  from  the 
many  books  of  the  time,  by  Citoyen  Ameilhon, 
Citoyen  Butenschoen,  Citoyen  Daunou,  and  Citoy- 
ens Camus,  Coste,  and  Arsenne  Thiébaut  ;  and  from 
the  more  distinguished  contributions  to  the  science 
by  Gesner,  Treffer,  Schott,  Naudé,  Morhoff, 
Leibnitz  and  the  immortal  Bacon?  These  are 
questions  whose  answers  would  require  a  volume, 
and  not  an  introductory  note,  so  we  will  content 
ourselves  with  mentioning  the  important  point  in 
Parent's  scheme.  Edwards  states  it  well  in  his 
Memoirs  of  Libraries,  although,  by  the  way,  he 
seemed  to  have  had  some  hesitation  in  speaking  of 
the  work  at  all.  "Another  scheme  of  this  date", 
says  he,  "  may,  perhaps,  deserve  a  word  of  remark 
in  passing  on  ",  putting  his  pen  on  the  vital  spot,  in 
the  following  words  : 


vi  Essay  on  Bibliography 

"  Not  the  least  curious  thing  connected  with  this 
essay  is,  that  it  includes  a  separate  scheme  for  divid- 
ing literary  history  into  fourteen  great  epochs,  each 
of  them  connected  with  a  predominating  name.  Its 
own  epoch  is  sufficiently  marked  by  the  last  three 
of  these  :  '  12th  Epoch  :  Voltaire  sketching  on  the 
walls  of  the  Bastille  the  rough  draft  of  the  Henri- 
ade.  13th  Epoch:  Voltaire  crowned  at  Paris.  14th 
Epoch:  Bonaparte,  the  friend  of  the  arts  and  of 
learning,  consolidating  the  French  Republic,  and 
giving  peace  to  Europe.'  " 

In  other  words.  Parent  introduced  what  librarians 
call  a  time  division,  hifalutin  and  sentimental,  if 
you  will,  but  not  so  unlike  the  fundamental  princi- 
ples which  guided  the  modifiers  of  Bacon's  scheme, 
wherein  all  human  knowledge  is  regarded  as  issuing 
from  three  sources, — Memory,  Imagination,  and 
Reason.  He  added  a  human  note  characteristic  of 
his  day  and  generation,  when  all  hearts  were  aflame 
for  philosophic  research,  and  the  maxims  of  the 
Encyclopedists  were  watchwords  which  lived,  des- 
pite the  hostility  of  conservative  censors  and  timid 
printers.  We  may  see  their  influence,  shorn  of  all 
the  personal  note  and  the  enthusiasm  which  marked 
their  birth,  in  the  systems  of  classifications  in  use 
today. 

For  the  translation  of  this  essay,  the  Editors  of  the 


Introductory  Note  vii 

Librarian's  Series  are  indebted  to  Mrs.  Schuyler 
Van  Rensselaer,  who,  with  humor  and  ready  sym- 
pathy, has  finely  caught  and  exactly  reproduced  in 
English  the  grandiloquence  of  our  author. 

H.  W.  K. 


ESSAY 

ON  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

AND  ON  THE  ATTAINMENTS 
OF   A   LIBRARIAN 


"  Asinii  Pollionis  hoc  Romae  inventum, 
qui  primus  bibliothecam  dicando,  ingenio 
hominum  rem  publicam  fecit."    Plin.  Maj. 

Asinius  Pollio  was  the  first  who,  consecrat- 
ing a  library  in  Rome,  made  the  riches  of  the 
mind  public  property. 


Price,  75  centimes. 


FOR  SALE 

AT  Paris,  at  the  Printing  and  Publishing  House  of 

Chrétienne,  rue  Saint-Jacques,  No.  278. 

And  by  the  Author,  rue  Jacob,  No.  1198. 


ANNO  IX  REP.  FR. 


To  THE  Professors  of   the   Ecole  Centrale 
OF  THE  Department  of  Nièvre. 

Citizens  and  former  Colleagues, 

If  the  Essay  on  Bibliography,  which  I  offer  the 
Public,  is  so  fortunate  as  to  win  its  suffrages,  permit 
me  to  resign  to  you  the  chief  part  of  the  credit  It  was 
in  our  conferences,  where  fraternity  and  the  love  of 
lettters  presided,  that  I  conceived  the  project  of  ar- 
ranging, in  clear  and  methodical  order,  the  riches 
acquired  by  the  human  mind  during  the  long  course 
of  the  lettered  centuries. 

Happy  I  shall  be  if  your  pupils  and  yourselves. 
Citizen  Colleagues,  recognize  in  this  Essay  the  un- 
failing desire,  which  has  always  inspired  me,  to  de- 
serve your  esteem  and  to  be  serviceable  to  the  young. 

Greeting  and  Friendship, 

PARENT,  the  Elder,  Professor 
of  History  and  Geography. 


ESSAY 

ON  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

AND  ON  THE  ATTAINMENTS 

OF  A  LIBRARIAN 


THE  scythe  of  time,  reaping  the  great  among 
men,  has  too  often  extended  its  ravages  to 
the  rare  products  of  their  genius. 

Doubtless,  the  earUest  childhood  of  the  world  was 
not  that  epoch  in  which,  according  to  the  records  of 
an  uncertain  history,  we  see  the  savage  and  scattered 
Greeks  receiving,  like  tutelary  gods,  those  who 
taught  them  the  first  forms  of  government,  and 
showed  them  those  shapeless  essays  in  the  arts  and 
sciences  which,  later  on,  the  descendants  of  these 
same  Greeks  brought  so  brilliantly  to  perfection. 

Doubtless,  there  were  peoples  being  born,  for  us, 
when  celebrated  and  populous  nations  had  already 
shone  out  and  been  eclipsed  by  the  revolution  of 
the  centuries.  The  art  of  monument  building  had 
not  yet  taught  men  how  to  contend  successfully 


(4) 
against  the  efforts  of  destructive  time.  During  how 
many  centuries  was  the  earth  employed  in  contem- 
plating, in  nourishing,  in  renewing,  the  many  gen- 
erations of  Chinese  and  Indians,  of  Chaldaeans  and 
Egyptians,  of  Titans,  Scythians,  Phœnicians,  and 
Hebrews  !  And  yet  a  few  pages  suffice  to  contain 
all  the  well-established  knowledge  that  has  been 
wrested  from  time  with  regard  to  these  diverse 
peoples,  antecedent  to  the  epochs  when  the  career 
of  the  known  world  began. 

Let  us  not  flatter  ourselves  that  we  are  safe  from 
the  moral  and  physical  revolutions  of  the  globe  that 
we  inhabit  ;  but  let  us  dare,  nevertheless,  to  assert 
that  the  history  of  mankind  now  rests  upon  found- 
ations so  vast,  so  solid,  that  it  is  hardly  possible  for 
revolutions  of  any  sort  to  devour  its  essential  pages. 

Although  great  masters  have  preceded  me  in 
treating  of  the  methods  through  which  mankind,  by 
dint  of  experiments,  of  inventions,  and  of  genius,  has 
succeeded  in  creating  for  itself  a  veritable  immor- 
tality, I  venture  to  mingle  my  feeble  voice  with  their 
learned  researches,  in  order  to  applaud  those 
methods,  and  to  set  forth  my  views  upon  the  art  of 
bibliography  and  the  attainments  of  a  librarian. 


(5) 


PART  THE  FIRST. 

Printing,  for  the  wide  sphere  of  human  intelli- 
gence, plays  the  same  part  that  nature  plays  for  the 
terrestrial  globe.  The  latter  multiplies  the  germs  of 
the  creatures  subject  to  her  triple  empire,  as  the 
former  multiplies  the  products  of  the  mind,  with  an 
indestructible  prodigality.  But  the  more  nature 
lavishes,  in  the  wide  fields  of  life,  the  germs  and 
the  elements  of  her  creatures,  the  more  needful  it  is 
to  have  a  clue  to  guide  the  progress  of  the  observer. 
It  is  Natural  History  that  supplies  this  Ariadne's 
Thread. 

Printing,  (  ^  )  as  rich  and  prodigal  as  nature,  would 
crush  us  under  the  weight  of  its  immense  treasures 
if  no  one  had  discovered  the  art  of  subjecting  them 
to  a  certain  order  which  augments  their  value.  This 
art  is  Bibliography.  (  -  ) 

Here  we  take  the  word  in  its  whole  breadth,  as 
meaning,  not  only  the  knowledge,  but  also  the 
rational  love,  of  the  products  of  the  mind. 

If,  by  insensible  degrees,  man  has  come  to  know 

(1)  The  invention  of  Printing  goes  back  at  most  to  the  year 
1440.  Faust  and  Schoeffer,  his  son-in-law,  were  collaborators 
with  Gutenberg  in  this  superb  invention,  and  deserve  to  share  in 
its  glory. 

(2)  From  two  Greek  words  meaning,  Writing  about  Books. 


(6) 

the  true  principles  and  the  advantages  of  associa- 
tion; if  he  has  turned  to  profit  the  arts  and  the 
inventions  of  industry  and  of  genius,  in  order  to 
reach  a  degree  of  perfection  which  Hfts  him  as  far 
above  savage  man  as  the  savage  surpasses  the  in- 
sentient oyster  fixed  upon  its  rock  ;  if  he  has  pre- 
served the  written  titles  which  bear  witness  to  his 
nobility  and  his  rights;  if,  during  the  course  of 
centuries  and  of  revolutions,  he  has  been  able  to 
consult  the  great  book  of  experience,  that  first  and 
indispensable  teacher  of  mankind,  can  we  doubt  that 
it  is  to  bibliography  that  he  owes  these  precious  ad- 
vantages ? 

If  civilized  man,  despite  the  crimes  generated  by 
the  vicious  principles  and  the  evil  men  that,  almost 
everywhere,  have  presided  over  the  organization  of 
society  ;  if,  I  say,  social  and  reasonable  man  knows 
how  to  savour  true  pleasures  and  moments  of  hap- 
piness ;  if  a  man  of  private  and  modest  station  often 
finds,  in  the  bosom  of  a  happy  obscurity,  that  his  lot 
is  preferable  to  that  of  the  great  and  mighty  of 
the  earth  ;  if  the  mighty  man  hears  day  by  day  a 
thousand  voices  crying  to  him  that  he  must  bridle 
his  ambition  and  work  for  the  welfare  of  his  fellow- 
citizens,  that  only  upon  this  condition  is  he  great  ;  if 
the  man  of  letters  acquires  in  a  few  days  knowledge 
that  cost  his  predecessors  half-centuries  of  time  ;  if 
the  artist  is  continually  surrounded  by  rivals  and 


(7) 

great  masters  who  lead  him  to  perfection  in  his  art  ; 
if  the  opulent  man  knows  a  wise,  worthy,  and  de- 
lightful way  to  utilise  his  riches  ;  if  the  youth  can 
experience  pure  pleasures  which  serve  as  an  antidote 
to  corrupting  pleasures,  can  form  useful  tastes  which 
by  degrees  extinguish  dangerous  or  irrational  tastes, 
and  can  foster  felicitous  inclinations  which  counter- 
balance turbulent  and  baleful  passions;  if, finally  the 
old  man  in  each  of  the  moments  that  remain  to  him, 
can  possess  all  past  ages,  and  console  himself  for  his 
approaching  end  by  the  enchanting  spectacle  of 
centuries,  generations,  and  nations  rapidly  succeed- 
ing each  other  in  the  vast  course  of  existence,  who 
can  deny  that  these  many  benefactions  are  due  to 
the  progress  of  bibliography  ? 

If,  to  conclude,  instead  of  repeating  with  certain 
morose  or  too  short-sighted  moralists,  that  the  world 
grows  daily  more  corrupt,  we  perceive,  in  a  future 
doubtless  still  too  distant,  that  happy  time  when 
reason  and  nature  shall  make  their  voices  heard  and 
respected  in  the  one  hemisphere  and  the  other; 
when  truth  shall  triumph  over  all  the  phantoms  of 
error;  when  the  liberty  of  united  peoples  shall 
henceforward  be  safe  from  those  deadly  attacks, 
those  grievous  revolutions,  which  devour  whole 
generations  ;  when  the  morality  of  nature  shall  over- 
turn all  the  ensanguined  altars  of  a  dreadful  super- 
stition to  establish  the  simple,  uniform,  universal 


(8) 

worship  of  virtues  useful  to  the  great  family  of  man- 
kind; when  all  the  barriers,  moral,  political,  and 
religious  that  separate  the  nations  shall  be  over- 
thrown, we  must  expect  these  marvels  as  a  result  of 
the  fertilizing  light  spread  abroad  by  bibliography. 

These  advantages,  perceived  by  thinking  men, 
were  coveted  by  all  the  celebrated  peoples  of  antiq- 
uity. Everyone  knows  that  King  Ismandes  (  ^  )  conse- 
crated the  interior  chambers  of  the  most  famous  of 
Egyptian  palaces  to  the  preservation  of  the  first 
library  of  the  universe  and  that  on  the  portal  of  this 
palace  of  learning  were  inscribed  these  words, 
in  Greek:  The  Pharmacy  of  the  Soul 

If,  among  the  usurpers  of  supreme  power,  there 
are  some  whose  names  seem  less  horrifying  than 
others  in  the  memories  of  free  men,  we  may  count 
among  them  Pisistratus,  to  whom  we  should  give 
credit,  not  only  for  respecting  the  person  of  the  sage 
Solon  when  he  destroyed  his  work,  but  especially 
for  being  the  first  to  form  a  precious  library  at 
Athens. 

Who  would  have  believed  it?  The  imbecile 
Xerxes,  madly  jealous  though  he  was  of  the  glory 

(1)  Or  Osymandes.  This  was  a  great  triumph  over  the  hiero- 
phants,  who  had  carefully  hidden  the  books  and  the  sources  of 
knowledge.  Hieroglyphic  writing  was  long  employed  only  in 
order  that  everything  might  remain  a  mystery  to  the  people  which 
all  the  members  of  the  same  social  organization  have  a  right  to 
know  and  an  interest  in  knowing. 


(9) 

of  Athens,  respected  the  Hbrary  that  Pisistratus  had 
founded,  and  piously  transported  it  to  Persia,  whence 
it  was  returned  by  the  Seleucidae  to  the  sacred  en- 
closure of  its  original  home. 

Honor  to  this  immortal  soil  of  Greece,  the  soil 
of  science  and  the  arts  !  where  even  the  despots, 
dominated  by  public  opinion,  prided  themselves 
upon  preserving  and  embellishing  the  repositories 
of  learning,  and  upon  thus  tacitly  recognizing  the 
crimes  of  tyranny,  the  rights  of  the  people,  and  the 
noble  principles  of  liberty. 

The  most  powerful  princes  did  not  think  that  to 
seek  and  to  collect  the  works  of  literature  was  the 
least  brilliant  of  the  enterprises  entrusted  to  their 
ambitious  grandeur.  The  most  celebrated  men,  after 
having  drawn  a  part  of  their  excellence  therefrom, 
made  it  their  glory  and  their  pleasure  to  multiply 
the  sources  of  bibliography. 

Alexander,  nourished  on  the  fine  arts  of  Greece, 
devoted  a  rich  jewel  of  the  kings  of  Persia  to  the 
preservation  of  the  rarest  product  of  the  human 
mind,  the  Iliad.  This  same  conqueror  used  his 
treasures,  and  the  genius  of  his  tutor,  in  collecting 
the  works  of  nature  and  of  philosophy  from  every 
place  on  the  earth  which  he  traversed  in  triumph. 

The  Ptolemys,  his  worthy  successors  in  Egypt, 
immortalized  themselves  by  a  bibliographical  collec- 
tion, known  as  the  Alexandrian  Library.  How  many 


(10) 

tears,  during  almost  nineteen  centuries,  have  been 
drawn  from  the  eyes  of  scholars  by  the  impious 
flames  which,  under  the  triumvirate  of  Caesar  and 
Pompey,  devoured  this  valuable  library,  a  library 
which,  in  more  modern  times,  when  a  new  collection, 
larger  if  not  more  precious  than  the  first,  had  been 
formed  of  its  fragments  and  the  fruits  of  several 
centuries,  served  as  food  for  the  fanatical  pyres 
which  were  lighted  by  the  fierce  Omar  ! 

But,  turning  our  affrighted  gaze  from  the  dreadful 
outrages  of  despotism  and  superstition,  those  eter- 
nal enemies  of  knowledge  and  of  nations,  let  us 
carry  it  rapidly  over  the  illustrious  friends  and  the 
founders  of  bibliographical  monuments. 

On  the  shores  of  the  Propontis  I  see  the  learned 
Philetaerus,  chief  of  the  Attalids,  founding  a  brilliant 
empire  and  bringing  together  the  famous  library  of 
Pergamos,  which  taught  the  celebrated  Attalus  the 
secret  of  being  happier  on  the  throne  through  the 
possession  of  intellectual  wealth  than  through  that 
of  the  immense  treasures  which  prolonged 
economy  secured  for  him. 

Paulus  ^milius,  philosopher  and  warrior,  tri- 
umphs over  the  unhappy  Perseus,  the  last  king  of 
Macedonia.  Rare  and  innumerable  riches  are  laid 
at  his  feet.  Paulus  y^milius  has  them  carried  to  the 
public  treasury;  but  the  library  he  causes  to  be 
transported  carefully  to  Rome,  as  the  most  precious 


(11) 

heritage  he  could  bequeath  to  his  children.  It  is  in 
the  time  of  this  great  man,  and  by  virtue  of  his  ex- 
ample, that  books  multiply  in  Rome,  and  give  birth 
to  the  taste  for  learning  and  for  bibliography. 

Who  has  not  heard  boasts  about  the  immense 
domains,  the  sumptuous  table,  of  Lucullus  ?  But  is 
it  as  well  known  that  this  Roman  general  owed  his 
military  successes  to  his  love  and  study  of  books? 
Is  it  as  well  known  that  he  owed  to  the  good  use 
of  his  vast  library  the  beloved  and  illustrious 
name  that  he  left  among  the  beaux  esprits  and  the 
distinguished  personages  of  the  Roman  Republic?!^) 

Pompey  had  a  passionate  love  for  books,  and  dis- 
cerned the  inaptitude  of  a  tutor  in  his  badly  chosen 
library. 

Asinius  Pollio,  virtuous  and  learned  republican  as 
well  as  famous  warrior,  was  the  first  to  establish 
public  libraries  in  Rome.  It  was  in  the  bosom  of  his 
own,  enriched  by  the  rarest  books,  that  he  forgot  the 
grandeurs  and  splendors  that  attend  public  office, 
and  disdained  the  friendship  of  Octavius,  the 
oppressor  of  Roman  liberty. 

Octavius,  after  becoming  the  Emperor  Augustus, 

(  1  )  Cicero  and  Cato  the  Elder  often  buried  themselves  in  the 
library  of  Lucullus  ;  and  Cicero  says  that  Cato,  in  the  midst  of 
so  many  volumes,  seemed  a  helluo  libroruvi  :  a  devourer  of 
books. 

Cicero  himself  tells  us  that  he  saved  the  profits  of  his  harvests 
to  buy  the  library  of  Atticus. 


(12) 

thought  to  win  oblivion  for  the  crimes  of  the  trium- 
virate by  protecting  letters  and  scholars.  The  most 
solemn  proof  that  he  gave  of  his  love  for  the  fine 
arts  was  the  care  he  took  to  bring  together  a  public 
library  in  the  temple  of  Apollo  Palatine. 

The  Roman  Empire  falls  into  decadence,  and  with 
it  is  entombed  the  taste  for  bibliography.  Every- 
where swarms  of  ignorant  barbarians  carry  fire  and 
the  sword,  servitude  or  death,  and,  finally,  that  igno- 
rance which  is  in  itself  more  deadly  than  all  these 
horrible  scourges.  The  wellsprings  of  bibliography 
are  dried  up,  and  still  more  often  are  poisoned  by  the 
ministrants  of  superstition  or  tyranny. 

Despite  the  laudable  endeavors  of  Charlemagne  in 
the  cause  of  letters,  learning  remained  concentrated 
in  the  depths  of  the  monasteries,  and  what  sort  of 
learning  was  that  which  had  as  its  guides  only  the 
systematic  enemies  of  reason  and  nature  !  As  the 
art  of  writing  no  longer  existed  except  in  the  hands 
of  a  small  number  of  monks,  day  by  day  biblio- 
graphy lost  some  of  its  ancient  riches  ;  and,  owing 
to  the  great  cost  of  simple  manuscripts  of  a  few 
pages,  sovereigns  alone  were  able  to  collect  them 
and  in  scanty  numbers  only.  (  ^  )  Moreover,  as  the 
mystical  subtleties  of  a  few  theologians  occupied, 
by  preference,  the   idleness   of   the   monks,  the 

(  1  )  Antony  of  Palermo  sold  his  house  to  buy  a  manuscript  of 
Livy. 


(13) 

masterpieces  of  Greece  and  Rome  languished  in  the 
corners  of  innumerous  ill-ordered  libraries.  What 
am  I  saying  !  Scarcely  a  monastic  superior  could  be 
found  who  did  not  claim  merit,  after  the  example  of 
Gregory  I,  for  the  destruction  of  what  he  called 
pagan  authors  ;  and  it  was  thus  that  almost  all  cele- 
brated works  were  mutilated,  and  came  near  to 
being  wholly  wrested  from  the  clasp  of  immortality. 
Ah  !  can  the  treasures  that  escaped  from  this  terri- 
ble persecution  of  the  centuries  of  ignorance  ever 
console  us  for  those  that  were  devoured  ? 

But  there  shines  a  ray  of  hope  for  the  eyes  of 
philosophers.  The  fall  of  the  Empire  of  the  East 
pours  into  Europe  a  great  number  of  learned  men 
and  the  sources  of  knowledge.  Enriched  by  the 
spoils  of  the  conquered,  and  by  a  very  widely 
extended  commerce,  the  Arabs,  satiated  with  luxury, 
are  no  longer,  as  were  their  ancestors,  ignorant 
satellites  of  the  fierce  Omar,  but  are  friends  of  the 
fine  arts.  The  three  parts  of  the  known  world 
receive  from  the  hands  of  these  warrior-traders 
the  germs  of  philosophy  and  the  cult  of  poetry 
and  agreeable  talents. 

At  last  thou  appearest,  happy  Gutenberg,  aided 
by  thine  immortal  colleagues,  Faust  and  Schoffer. 
From  your  presses,  furnished  with  characters  cut 
in  wood,  come  masterpieces,  which  surpass  the 
beautiful  script  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  which 


(14) 

still  amaze  the  great  masters  of  typographic  art  ! 
May  your  names,  inscribed  upon  the  temple  of 
memory,  ever-more  be  cherished  by  the  lovers  of 
bibliography  ! 

The  mind  of  man  takes  a  new  flight  ;  ignorance 
trembles  at  the  fading  of  the  shadows  that  hide  its 
hideous  nudity,  its  despicable  folly.  The  springs  of 
knowledge  multiply  ;  the  Roman  clergy  is  no  longer 
for  Europe  that  which  the  mysterious  hierophants 
were  for  ancient  Egypt.  Men  of  all  ranks,  of  all  con- 
ditions, acquire  a  taste  for  learning;  universities, 
academies,  colleges,  learned  associations,  every- 
where open  the  sources  of  instruction.  Learning 
promotes  learning  :  the  nobility,  formerly  honored 
for  its  ignorance,  embellishes  its  'châteaux'  with  bib- 
liographical collections  when  once  the  father  of 
philosophy  in  France,  Michel  Montaigne,  has 
taught  it  great  lessons  and  set  it  a  great  example. 

Charles  VIII  founds  the  library  of  the  'College  de 
Navarre,'  the  oldest  known  to  literary  France. 
Brought  up  in  this  college,  the  renowned  Cardinal 
d'Ailly  bequeaths  to  it  a  portion  of  his  possessions, 
and  the  most  precious  of  all,  his  library. 

Francis  I,  rightly  called  the  father  of  Letters  and 
the  Fine  Arts,  who  treated  as  an  equal  the  cele- 
brated Raphael,  founds  the  'College  Royale'  and  the 
library  which  has  served  as  the  first  foundation  of 
the  '  Bibliothèque  Nationale.' 


(15) 

Nevertheless,  great  obstacles  still  barred  the 
advance  of  bibliography.  Philosophy,  far  from  pre- 
siding over  the  collections  that  were  being  formed, 
groaned  under  the  system  of  proscriptions  adopted 
by  the  court  of  Christian  Rome.  The  Index  of  the 
popes  was,  perhaps,  more  hurtful  to  the  progress  of 
bibliography,  at  the  time  of  the  renaissance  of  let- 
ters, than  the  flames,  which  for  six  months  warmed 
with  heaps  of  volumes  the  baths  of  Alexandria. 
But  a  moral  power  arose,  rivalling  that  of  the 
popes  ;  the  opinions  of  men  were  divided  between 
Rome  and  Geneva;  and  thenceforward  the  Index 
became,  for  the  opposing  party,  a  sure  means 
of  recognizing  and  searching  for  those  products 
of  the  mind  that  religious  despotism  wished  to 
annihilate.  Thus,  amid  the  deplorable  dissensions 
which,  for  more  than  two  centuries,  bred  the  mis- 
fortunes of  our  Catholic  or  Huguenot  forefathers, 
philosophy,  silently  intent  upon  the  preparation  of 
the  remedies  that  could  heal  the  ills  of  the  human 
mind,  gathered  and  conserved,  in  the  libraries  of  the 
leaders  of  various  factions,  the  precious  works  that 
gave  umbrage  to  intolerance. 

The  instance  of  the  learned  David  Ancillon,  pastor 
of  Metz,  deserves  to  be  cited.  In  the  silence  of 
unremitting  study,  Ancillon  had  collected,  during 
the  course  of  forty-four  years,  thousands  of  books 
and  manuscripts,  spending  among  them  the  greater 


(16) 

part  of  his  life.  Above  all,  he  sought  for  first 
editions,  and  counted  in  his  rich  collection  specimens 
of  the  earliest  great  masters  of  typography.  (  ^  ) 

The  Edict  of  Nantes  is  revoked;  Ancillon,  pro- 
scribed, is  forced  to  fly,  to  steal  away  from  his  books, 
to  tear  himself  from  the  arms  of  his  friends.  His 
library  falls  a  prey  to  swarms  of  covetous  or  igno- 
rant men.  But,  happily,  foreseeing  this  horrible 
stroke  of  despotism,  Ancillon  had  removed  from  his 
retreat,  and  sent  to  a  safe  sanctuary  those  of  his 
books  which  royal  or  religious  intolerance  would 
have  devoured. 

But,  indeed,  what  could  all  the  strivings  of  super- 
stitious sects  and  ignorant  despots  then  effect 
against  the  torrents  of  enlightenment  which,  day  by 
day,  flowed  from  the  typographical  press?  The 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  rescued  from 
obscurity,  and  multiplied  the  works  of  the  ancients  ; 
hosts  of  profoundly  learned  men  seemed  to  emerge 
from  the  schools  of  Aristotle  and  Plato,  of  Seneca, 
Plutarch,  and  Quintilian.  If  bibliography  was  then 
burdened  with  voluminous  and  oftentimes  formless 
productions,  at  least  it  found,  in  these  indefatigable 
writers,  diligent  hands,  which  gleaned  with  respect 
everything  that  lettered  antiquity  had  passed  on  to 

(  1  )  Bayle  was  for  first  editions,  saying  that  here  is  the  first 
thought  of  the  author,  while  the  corrections  of  later  editions 
afford  highly  instructive  lessons. 


(17) 

us  athwart  the  revolutions  of  centuries  and  of 
empires. 

The  seventeenth  century  was  for  bibliography  a 
century  of  conquests,  or,  it  may  better  be  said,  of  the 
most  abundant  harvests.  All  the  empires  of  Europe, 
all  the  cities,  all  the  cantons,  all  the  societies,  had 
their  own  libraries  ;  and  that  which,  in  the  erudite 
family  of  the  Fuggers,  (  ^  )  the  preceding  century  had 
offered  as  a  marvel,  now  became  common,  almost 
necessary,  to  all  well-to-do  citizens. 

What,  in  conclusion,  shall  we  say  of  our  own  cen- 
tury, when  the  sources  of  bibliography,  accessible 
on  every  side,  offer  even  to  children  the  milk  of 
knowledge  and  the  chance  to  be,  at  eighteen  years 
of  age,  richer  in  deeds  than  the  too-famous  Pico  della 
Mirandola  was  in  words,  and  to  seem,  more  truly 
than  the  learned  Thomas  Dempster,  great  talking 
libraries  ? 

But  here  let  us  pause  to  bless  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, one  of  the  most  precious  benefits  of  which  has 
been  the  giving  to  bibliography  all  the  latitude,  and 
all  the  liberty  that  philosophy  for  a  long  time  had 
claimed  for  itself.  Henceforward  one  and  another 
wellspring  of  knowledge  will  no  longer  be  sealed  ; 

(  1  )  One  of  these,  named  Huldric  Fugger,  owned  a  library  the 
books  of  which  equalled  the  stars  in  number.  His  relatives  tried 
to  have  him  put  under  restraint,  but  the  sentence  was  annulled. 
He  bequeathed  his  library  to  the  Elector  Palatine. 


(18) 

ignorance  will  no  longer  condemn  to  exile,  to  pro- 
scription, the  native  products  of  genius  ;  despotism 
will  no  longer  devote  to  the  flames  the  conceptions 
of  free  men;  nor  will  superstition  again  erect, 
between  books  and  men,  those  barriers  which  stood 
formidable  for  too  long  a  time.  (  ^  ) 

(  1  )  Now,  it  is  the  philosophers  who  are  proscribed  under 
ignorant  and  ferocious  emperors  ;  again,  it  is  Aristotle  who,  after 
being  the  rival  of  theologians,  is  condemned  as  a  source  of 
heresy.  There,  it  is  Galileo  who,  as  Voltaire  humorously 
remarks,  begs  pardon  for  being  right  with  regard  to  the  move- 
ments of  celestial  bodies  ;  here,  it  is  Voltaire  himself  who,  in  his 
supposed  quality  of  atheist,  is  forced,  like  Descartes,  to  seek  a  new 
fatherland. 


(19) 


PART  THE  SECOND 
Of  the  Librarian 

First  Section 
What  the  Librarian  should  be;  His  Attainments 

We  must  grant,  however,  that  these  many  benefits 
gain  a  new  degree  of  usefulness  when  enlightened 
directors  preside  over  the  sacred  repositories  of 
bibliography.  A  public  library  is  like  the  mines  of 
Potosi,  which  hold  in  their  bosom  the  metallic  riches 
that  feed  the  industry  of  nations  ;  and  a  librarian  is 
the  skilful  mineralogist  who  has  explored  all  the 
veins  of  the  mines  ;  who  knows  and  indicates  those 
that  are  abundant  or  sterile,  useful  or  dangerous  ; 
who  prescribes  the  excavations  required  for  suc- 
cessful working  ;  and,  lastly,  who  classifies  the  divers 
metals,  and  prepares  them  for  the  crucible. 

If  all  librarians  have  not  the  wide  knowledge  and 
the  gifts  of  a  Demetrius  Phalereus,  to  whom  the 
Ptolemys  confided  the  direction  of  the  Alexandrian 
Library,  it  must  still  be  felt  that  the  important 
functions  they  exercise  demand  attainments  that 
are  not  common.    The  knowledge  and  the  methods 


(20) 

of  a  librarian  should  be  like  the  table  which,  at  the 
beginning  of  a  book,  co-ordinates  all  its  contents. 

To  understand  the  origin  and  the  filiation  of 
human  acquirements,  the  ties  and  fraternal  affinities 
that  unite  among  themselves  all  the  mechanical  or 
liberal  arts;  to  be  able  to  follow  from  century  to 
century,  from  age  to  age,  the  chronology  of  authors 
and  artists;  to  know  what  riches  of  intellect,  of 
genius,  of  talent,  belong  to  this  or  that  nation,  so  that 
all  the  periods  beloved  by  philosophy  and  literature 
present  themselves  distinctly  to  the  memory,  so  that 
the  times  of  Homer  and  Thaïes,  of  Bias  and  Solon, 
that  of  Pindar  and  Euripides,  of  Demosthenes  and 
Isocrates,  of  Socrates  and  Plato,  of  Thucydides  and 
Xenophon,  of  Meton  and  Hippocrates,  of  Phidias  and 
Apelles,  and,  again,  that  of  Aratus  and  of  Phocion, 
of  Epicurus,  Zeno,  Menander,  Archimedes,  and  The- 
ocritus, do  not  fall  into  an  embarrassing  confusion, 
so  that  the  reigns  of  Alexander,  of  the  Ptolemys,  of 
the  Attalids  may  show  with  great  clearness  the 
boundaries  that  circumscribed  their  intellectual 
patrimony;  to  follow  among  the  Romans  the  progress 
of  their  knowledge  more  scrupulously  than  that 
of  their  arms,  from  the  time  when  they  had  adopted 
the  arts  of  the  Etruscans  and,  with  reprehensible 
jealousy,  had  destroyed  the  precious  monuments 
which  these  children  of  ancient  Greece  had  erected 
in  the  time  of  their  prosperity;  to  pass  from  the  essays 


(21) 

of  Ennius,  of  Lucilius,  of  Plautus,  of  Cato  the  Censor, 
to  the  immortal  creations  of  Lucretius,  of  Catullus, 
Terence,  Julius  Caesar,  Sallust,  and  the  prince  of 
eloquence;  to  perceive,  quickly  following  these,  their 
renowned  rivals,  a  Horace,  a  Virgil,  a  Livy,  a  Phae- 
drus,  all  those,  in  fact,  who  lent  the  brilliance  of  their 
glory  to  the  Age  of  Augustus  ;  to  separate  from  these 
last,  by  a  line  of  demarcation,  a  Pliny,  a  Seneca,  a 
Lucan,  a  Tacitus,  a  Martial,  a  Quintilian,  a  Ptolemy, 
a  Papinian,  a  Vitruvius  ;  to  know  how  to  distinguish, 
in  the  thick  shadows  of  an  ignorance  due  to  the 
barbarian  irruptions,  the  precious  gleams  diffused 
along  the  literary  horizon  by  a  Boëthius,  a  Cassiodo- 
rus,  a  Procopius,  and  a  Symmachus,  by  the  reigns  of 
Charlemagne  and  of  Alfred  the  Great,  by  Avicenna, 
by  Abélard  and  his  Héloise,  by  Averroës,  Robert  de 
Sorbonne,  Matthew  of  Paris,  Albertus  Magnus, 
Roger  Bacon,  Jean  de  Meung,  Lullius,  Dante,  Join- 
ville,  P.  de  Cugnières,  Daniello  Bartoli,  Boccac- 
cio, and  Petrarch  and  by  Wycliffe,  Froissart, 
Pierre  d'Ailly,  Leonardo  Aretin,  and  Poggio;  to 
gather  among  the  Arabs,  grown  all-powerful  in 
Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  the  literary  monuments 
and  especially  the  poetical  works  begotten  by  the 
genius  of  the  Orient  in  the  different  parts  of  their 
vast  domains  :  all  this  is  the  first  and  the  most  solid 
foundation  upon  which  the  librarian  should  erect 
the  edifice  of  his  attainments. 


(22) 

The  revolution  produced  in  bibliography  at  the 
end  of  the  ages  of  ignorance  by  the  wonderful 
invention  of  Gutenberg  increases  the  labors  of  the 
director  while  making  them  easier.  Step  by  step,  he 
follows  the  literary  generations  that  rapidly  succeed 
one  another.  Bessarion,  Antony  of  Palermo,  Juvenal 
des  Ursins,  and  Villon  open  for  him  this  great  vista. 
Then  he  sees  the  entry  of  Agricola,  Boiardo,  Politian; 
and,  following  in  their  steps,  bringing  the  fifteenth 
century  to  its  close,  Calepino,  Christopher  Colum- 
bus, Philippe  de  Comines,  Despautère,  Saint-Gelais, 
Joseph  Pontano,  and  Pomponazzi  the  sceptic. 

What  joys  the  succeeding  century  offers  him! 
What  a  harvest  for  his  memories  !  What  precious 
monuments  for  his  bibliographical  shelves  !  What 
radiance  does  the  century  of  Frances  I  and  Leo  X 
shed  abroad  in  the  world  ! 

Three  periods  or  generations  compose  this  cen- 
tury of  resuscitated  learning  :  the  period  of  Francis 
I,  that  of  Henry  II,  and  that  of  Henry  IV. 

During  the  first  period,  Paracelsus,  Erasmus, 
Agrippa,  appear  in  philosophy;  Ariosto,  Bembo, 
Marot,  Sannazaro,  in  poetry  ;  Guillaume  du  Bellay, 
Macchiavelli,  Thomas  More,  in  politics  ;  Copernicus, 
Fernando  Cortez,  Ferdinand  Magellan,  in  scientific 
discovery;  Mantegna,  Raphael,  in  the  arts;  and 
Guicciardini,  Aldus  Manutius,  Paulus  ^milius  and 
Polydore  Virgil,  in  history. 


(23) 

Robert  Estienne  presides  over  the  second  period, 
which  is  illumined  by  such  men  of  learning  as 
de  Thou,  Julius  Caesar  Scaliger,  Giovio,  Fracastor, 
and  Paulus  Jovius  ;  by  agreeable  poets  like  Pietro 
Aretino,  Trissino,  Pibrac,  and  Margaret  of  Navarre  ; 
by  Michel  de  L'Hôpital,  the  model  of  legislators,  in 
days  of  crimes  and  storms  ;  by  Zabarella,  the  bold 
philosopher,  near  the  faggots  of  the  Inquisition  ;  by 
Buchanan,  Danes,  Cardan,  Rabelais,  and  Muret, 
estimable  literary  men;  by  Michelangelo,  one 
of  the  eagles  of  the  art  of  painting,  who  nevertheless 
does  not  eclipse  the  radiance  with  which  a  Titian 
or  a  Paul  Veronese  shines  in  the  temple  of  memory. 

During  the  period  of  the  good  Henry,  Clio  presents 
on  behalf  of  history  Jacques  Amiot,  du  Bartas, 
Baronius,  Aldus  Manutius  the  Younger  ;  on  behalf 
of  politics,  Bodin  and  Sully  ;  on  behalf  of  learned 
and  chronological  research,  Justus  Lipsius,  Joseph 
Scaliger,  and  Gerard  Vossius  ;  and  on  behalf  of  juris- 
prudence, Guy  Coquille  and  Cujas.  Euterpe  gaily 
advances,  holding  by  the  hand  Bernardo  Tasso; 
Terpsichore  moves  with  measured  steps,  repeating 
some  of  the  songs  of  Régnier,  Desportes,  and  Pas- 
serat.  Erato,  with  her  lyre,  leans  upon  Etienne 
Pasquier  and  Beza.  Urania  measures  the  skies  with 
Tycho  Brahe  ;  and  Nicot,  who  upon  the  earth  fol- 
lows their  course,  brings  to  France  the  powder  that 
receives  his  name.     Polyhymnia,  escorted  by  a 


(24) 

throng  of  artists  and  philologists,  smiles  upon  Anni- 
bale  Carracci,  Christophe  Plantin,  Henri  Estienne, 
upon  the  brothers  Pithou,  Michel  Montaigne, 
and  Pierre  Charron.  Calliope  lends  her  heroic 
trumpet  to  Torquato  Tasso  and  de  Camoëns.  And 
Thalia  and  Melpomene,  soaring  above  the  rude 
and  ridiculous  theatres  which  our  pious  ancestors 
then  erected  to  them,  imperatively  call  upon  the 
scene  the  great  masters  of  dramatic  art.  Soon  their 
long  widowhood  shall  be  gloriously  consoled  by  the 
modern  equals  of  a  Sophocles  and  a  Terence. 

But  let  us  pause  at  the  entrance  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  However  glorious  for  the  human  mind  may 
be  the  immense  list  of  names  supplied  us  by  the 
reigns  of  Louis  XIII  and  Louis  XIV,  however  opulent 
for  bibliography,  agreeable  to  the  memory,  seductive 
to  the  imagination,  and,  finally,  however  dear  to 
august  philosophy,  we  cannot  present  it  here  without 
falling  into  a  fatiguing  monotony  ;  but  we  may  sup- 
pose that  the  librarian  knows  all  the  robust  and 
perennial  plants  that  adorn  the  forests  of  biblio- 
graphy, from  the  humble,  greenish  heather  to  the 
majestic  oaks  that  hide  their  foreheads  in  the  clouds. 

Beginning  with  the  period  of  the  reign  of  Louis 
XIII,  floods  of  light  are  seen  streaming  from  all 
parts  of  Europe.  England  prides  herself  upon  her 
Francis  Bacon,  her  William  Camden,  her  Shake- 
speare ;  Scotland,  upon  Barclay  ;  the  Netherlands, 


(25) 

upon  Van  Dyck,  Grotius,  Daniel  Heinsius;  Italy 
glories  in  Tommaso  Campanella,  Davila,  Guido 
Reni,  Domenichino,  Galileo,  Guarini,  and  the  Cheva- 
lier Marini;  Spain,  in  Cervantes  and  Lope  de 
Vega  ;  Germany  grows  illustrious  through  Johannes 
Kepler  and  Peter-Paul  Rubens;  Geneva,  through 
Isaac  Casaubon  ;  and,  lastly,  France  prepares  the 
dazzling  splendor  of  the  next  generations  with  the 
lyre  of  Malherbe  and  Brébeuf,  with  the  telescope  of 
Descartes  and  Gassendi,  with  the  quiet  lamp  of 
such  as  Mersenne,  Pétau,  Naudé,  Salmasius,  and 
Sainte-Marthe,  with  the  mirror  of  La  Mothe  le 
Vayer  and  Pascal,  with  the  burin  of  a  J.  Aug.  de 
Thou,  a  Brantôme,  a  Rapin  de  Thoyras,  with  the 
pen  of  a  Voiture  and  a  Vaugelas,  with  the  buskin  of 
Jean  de  Rotrou,  with  the  flageolet  of  Scarron  and 
Sarrasin,  with  the  scales  of  Nicholas  Sanson,  and 
even  with  the  pegs  of  Maître  Adam  Billaut. 

However  extensive,  however  fatiguing,  the  knowl- 
edge of  this  nomenclature  may  be  for  the  librarian, 
if  he  knows  authors  and  their  works  only  by  the 
titles  they  bear,  like  those  pompous  ignoramuses  of 
whom  Seneca  speaks,  he  will  continually  find  him. 
self  unequal  to  his  duties,  and  will  be  no  more  use- 
ful to  the  progress  of  knowledge  in  his  country  than 
the  sentinel  stationed  by  the  police  near  national 
monuments. 

Thus  to  know  the  main  thoughts  and  the  systems 


(26) 

of  authors  ;  to  be  a  stranger  to  none  of  the  hberal 
arts  or  sciences  ;  to  possess  precise  ideas  about  the 
principal  ancient  and  modern  languages  ;  to  ignore 
none  of  the  revolutions  that  the  works  of  the  mind 
have  undergone,  and  none  of  those  diverse  editions 
which  have  given  them  a  new  life  :  such  must  be  the 
intelligent  director  whom  his  fellowcitizens  have 
thought  worthy  to  supervise  the  repository  of 
learning. 

But,  above  all,  with  how  much  ardor  must  the 
qualified  director  be  able  to  question  the  most  dis- 
tinguished bibliographers  and  the  typographers  to 
whom  the  human  mind  owes  the  perfectioning  of 
the  marvelous  art  of  Printing  !  With  what  care  and 
pains  must  he  offer  to  his  fellowcitizens  the  rare 
first  efforts  of  Faust,  Schoffer,  and  Gutenberg  in 
Germany  ;  the  learned  editions  of  the  Estiennes  in 
France;  those  of  Robert  Estienne  and  Conrard 
Badius  at  Geneva,  of  the  brothers  Simon  of  Paris,  of 
Robert  Constantin  of  Caen,  and  of  that  Josse  Badius 
to  whom  typographic  art  owes,  if  not  the  invention, 
at  all  events  the  familiar  use,  of  round  Roman  types 
instead  of  the  Gothic  types  that  were  more  gener- 
ally employed  ;  the  still  more  elegant  examples  of 
the  four  Elzevir  brothers,  whose  presses  immortal- 
ized the  cities  of  Leyden  and  Amsterdam  ;  those  of 
the  Vatican  under  the  direction  of  the  Alduses 
and  Paul  Manutius  of  Venice  and  of  that  Michel 


(27) 

Vascosan,  associate  of  the  Badiuses  and  the  Esti- 
ennes,  who,  by  beauty  of  type  and  paper  and  of 
marginal  spaces,  and  by  exactness  of  impression, 
won  for  himself  a  distinguished  name  in  a  forever 
memorable  family. 

Nevertheless,  his  love  for  these  earliest  typo- 
graphic masterpieces  is  not  an  idolatry  that  weakens 
his  admiration  for  their  famous  successors.  The 
Creeches,  the  Maittaires,  the  Baskervilles  of  Lon- 
don, enable  him  but  to  appreciate  more  justly  the 
talents  of  Sigismond  Havercamp  of  Leyden,  of  the 
Barbous  of  Limoges  and  Paris,  of  the  Cousteliers,  of 
the  Baudoins  upon  whom  France  prides  herself, 
and  above  all  of  the  Didots  whose  stereotyped 
editions  must  effect  a  happy  revolution,  and  mark  a 
memorable  epoch,  in  bibliography  and  typographic 
art. 

Aided  by  the  catalogue  of  the  most  renowned 
printers,  he  will  be  able  to  distinguish  true  and  pure 
editions  from  adulterated  counterfeits.  Further- 
more, will  not  his  steps  be  guided  by  those  erudite 
bibliographers  whom  he  takes  pains  to  interrogate 
in  regard  to  the  editions  as  well  as  to  the  merits  and 
the  intelligence  of  authors  ? — for  example,  Casau- 
bon,  librarian  of  Henry  IV,  as  distinguished  for  his 
learning  as  for  his  candor  and  tolerance  in  a 
century  of  religious  wars;  Claude  François  Si- 
mon, printer  and  author,  learned  in  mythological 


(28) 

researches  ;  the  brothers  Pithou,  respected  in  a  time 
of  factions  and  hatreds  for  their  learning,  their  pro- 
bity, and  their  distinguished  talents  in  the  magis- 
tracy ;  the  brothers  Henri  and  Adrien  Valois,  biblio- 
graphers of  France  ;  Denis  Lambin,  that  scrupulous 
commentator;  and  that  Adrien  Turnèbe  whom 
several  neighboring  peoples  tried  to  take  away  from 
France  so  that  they  might  profit  by  his  exquisite 
gifts  for  printing  and  for  literature.  (  ^  ) 


SECOND  SECTION 

Plan  and  Method  of  the  Librarian 

To  present  in  an  easy  and  luminous  order  the  filia- 
tion of  human  acquirements — this  should  be  the 
whole  aim  of  the  methods  of  a  librarian  established 
near  an  Ecole  Centrale.  His  bibliographical  re- 
sources being  not  very  great,  and  his  means  limited, 
his  plan  in  consequence  cannot  be  as  vast  as  though 
he  presided  over  one  of  the  repositories  of  literature 
which,  much  larger  than  those  of  Alexandria  and 
Pergamos,  proclaim  with  majestic  affluence  the 
enlightenment  of  the  whole  nation. 


(  1  )  Turnèbe  took  so  much  pleasure  in  his  books  that  he 
passed  several  hours  among  them  on  the  very  day  of  his  mar- 
riage. 


(29) 

I  have  seen  many  libraries,  public  and  private, 
but  none  that  showed  me,  at  a  single  glance,  even  a 
few  of  those  great  results  which  delight  the  imagi- 
nation, nourish  an  enquiring  spirit,  and  preclude 
mental  delusions. 

I  have  seen  prodigal  opulence,  with  no  other  aim 
than  to  be  in  fashion,  amass  volumes  bought  by  the 
yard,  and  use  them  to  furnish  its  pompous  apart- 
ments. Plerisque  litterarum  ignaris,  libri,  non  stu- 
diorum  instrumenta  sunt,  sed  aedium  ornamenta.  (  ^  ) 

I  have  seen  the  worship  of  obscure  antiquity  col- 
lect its  volumes  covered  with  dust  or  worn  by  time, 
prefer  the  formless  and  scarcely  authentic  shreds 
of  Syriac  or  Hebrew,  Etruscan,  Arabic,  Celtic,  Chi- 
nese, or  Gothic  literature  to  the  immortal  produc- 
tions of  Greece  and  Rome,  bury  itself  in  the  biblio- 
graphy of  the  fifteenth  century  and  neglect  the 
infinite  riches  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth. 

I  have  seen  caprice  and  frivolity  preferring,  with 
an  opposite  kind  of  idolatry,  editions  brought  forth 
by  luxury  or  blind  fashion,  and  esteeming  books 
only  in  so  far  as  morocco  has  lent  them  its  livery, 
as  their  edges  are  double-gilt,  as  their  size  is  dainty 
and  portable,  or,  finally,  as  their  assemblage  upon 
costly  shelves   produces    an   elegant  uniformity. 


(  1  )  For  most  of  the  ignorant,  books  are  not  a  means  of 
instructing  themselves  but  of  adorning  their  apartments. 


(30) 

Ridiculous  abuse  of  learning  and  of  wealth!  An 
ignoscas  homini  aptanti  armaria  cedro  atque  ebore, 
et  inter  tot  millia  librorum,  oscitanti,  cui  voluminum 
suorum  frontes  maxime  placent  ? 

I  have  seen  the  half-learned,  entombed  in  immense 
bibliographical  collections,  keeping  secret  with  a 
new  sort  of  charlatanism  the  distribution  and  the 
order  they  had  adopted,  moving  with  a  ridiculous 
arrogance  amid  their  scientific  series,  and  mysteri- 
ously opening  their  registers  and  their  alphabetical 
shelves  as  in  earlier  times  the  hierophants  of  Egypt, 
with  scrupulous  precautions,  opened  their  sacred 
books  and  half  unveiled  their  hieroglyphics  to  Plato 
and  the  Pythagoreans. 

There,  I  have  seen  monastic  sloth,  asleep  on  the 
enormous  folios  of  the  holy  fathers  and  their  pon- 
derous commentators,  rouse  itself  only  to  condemn 
to  the  flames  the  poems  of  Horace  or  the  essays  of 
Montaigne. 

Here,  I  have  seen  antagonistic  sects  carrying 
even  into  the  sanctuaries  of  bibliography  their  spirit 
of  intolerance  and  their  horrible  systems  of  excom- 
munication, Geneva  and  Rome  striving  each  to 


(  1  )  What  shall  one  think  of  a  man  who  builds  his  shelves  of 
cedar  and  ivory,  and  who,  idle  in  the  midst  of  several  thousands 
of  volumes,  values  his  books  only  for  their  titles  and  their 
frontispieces  ? 


(31) 

exclude  the  other  from  these  vestibules  of  the  tem- 
ple of  memory,  the  fiery  Calvin  repulsing  the  vol- 
uptuous Leo  X  and  being,  in  his  turn,  excommuni- 
cated by  him,  the  famous  society  that  produced 
Pétaus,  Rapins,  Vanières,  and  Bourdaloues  refusing 
to  share  the  same  horizon  with  the  learned  authors 
of  Port-Royal,  and  vice  versa. 

Just  now  I  have  seen  Ignorance,  calling  itself  the 
friend  of  Liberty  and  pluming  itself  upon  a  blind 
patriotism,  repudiate  or  even  destroy  works 
fathered  by  the  friends  or  famous  pensioners  of 
kings,  only  to  take  up  those  born  in  the  bosom  of 
ancient  or  modem  republics,  and  thus  unfortunately 
provoke  a  charge  of  vandalism  against  the  wise 
friends  of  the  Republic.  (  ^  ) 


(  1  )  This  may  be  said  without  adopting  the  hypocritical  wail 
of  some  of  the  half-learned,  who,  creating  or  reviving  this  word 
vandalism,  have  tried  to  justify  their  hatred  of  the  Revolution. 
Here  is  something  that  happened  to  me.  An  officer  of  the  Rev- 
olutionary Guard,  as  ignorant  as  he  was  sincere,  came  to  my 
house  and,  with  a  stroke  of  his  sword,  destroyed  a  beautiful 
print  by  Sebastien  Leclerc,  representing  an  evangelical  subject 
Arriving  at  the  moment  when  he  was  about  to  lay  hands  upon 
others,  I  made  him  understand  the  merits  of  these  works  and  the 
respect  due  to  the  fine  arts,  and  since  then  the  arts  have  had  no 
more  zealous  defender.  Is  not  this  ignorance,  which  has  caused 
disasters  so  great  in  the  realm  of  letters  and  fine  arts,  one  more 
crime  to  be  imputed  to  the  ancien  r^/we  rather  than  to  the  pat- 
riots? Let  us  take  care  not  to  adopt  without  commentary  words 
which  the  antagonists  of  philosophy  and  liberty  have  employed 
against  them. 


(32) 

Lastly,  and  still  more  often,  I  have  seen  the  parti- 
sans of  royalty  and  the, tools  of  superstition  renew- 
ing in  their  ancestral  libraries  the  criminal  excesses 
of  the  fierce  Omar,  of  domineering  popes,  of  the 
fanatical  Sorbonne,  and  of  Séguier  the  parliamen- 
tarian, by  proscribing  the  immortal  works  of  philos- 
ophy and  the  ardent  pages  of  republicanism. 

It  is  evident  that  a  librarian  superior  to  religious 
prejudices,  to  exclusive  systems,  to  the  fantasies  of 
luxury  and  the  pettinesses  of  semi-erudition  will 
not  adopt  any  of  these  methods,  which  tend  to.  nar- 
row instead  of  widening  the  limits  of  human  intelli- 
gence. The  librarian,  like  the  historian,  belongs  to 
his  own  country  but  is  the  friend  of  all  others.  He 
is  not  the  priest  of  any  faith,  the  minister  of  any 
sect,  the  chief  of  any  faction,  the  initiate  of  any 
coterie,  the  adept  or  candidate  of  any  academy,  the 
idolatrous  partisan  of  any  system. 

O  you  who  are  called  to  govern  any  of  the  tem- 
ples consecrated  to  the  sciences  and  the  fine  arts, 
imbue  yourself  with  the  importance  of  your  func- 
tions ;  let  your  mind  be  filled  with  great  and  liberal 
ideas  ;  and,  to  this  end,  come  to  the  capital  of  the 
world  of  thought,  to  enjoy  the  enchanting  specta- 
cles offered  you  by  the  monuments  of  science  and 
art,  those  august  sanctuaries  where  the  genius  of 
the  Buffons,  the  Daubentons,  the  des  Thouins,  the 
Davids  and  Lenoirs,  still  presides. 


(33) 

Behold,  in  galleries  more  magnificently  adorned 
by  the  native  products  of  all  climes  and  of  every 
element  than  they  could  be  by  the  dazzling  profuse- 
ness  of  luxury,  behold  how  the  riches  of  nature  pre- 
sent themselves  in  orderly  array  to  the  eager  gaze 
of  the  spectator  !  Behold  how  orders,  classes,  genera, 
species,  families,  distinguish  the  insect  and  the 
reptile  from  their  like,  the  bird  from  the  bird,  the 
quadruped  from  the  quadruped,  the  fish  from  the 
amphibian!  Behold  the  surprising  contrasts  that 
Nature  shows!  How  she  differentiates  climates! 
What  brilliancy  she  gives  to  the  diamonds  of  Gol- 
conda  and  Visapour!  What  charming  variations 
her  brush  paints  upon  the  shells  of  Oriental  seas  I  To 
what  great  size  she  raises  the  insect  and  the  reptile 
of  America  in  comparison  with  the  correspond- 
ing families  of  Europe!  One  might  say  that  the 
fable  of  the  frog  who  tried  to  grow  as  large  as  the 
ox  has  finally  been  realized. 

If  from  the  temple  of  Nature  you  pass  to  that  of  the 
fine  arts,  (  ^  )  although  this  monument  truly  worthy 


(  1  )  The  Street  and  the  House  of  the  Petits-Angusthis  at  Paris 
under  the  direction  of  Lenoir.  I  know  this  estimable  citizen  only 
by  the  grand  and  simple  plan  he  has  adopted,  and  it  is  because 
of  the  feeling  of  admiration  he  inspires  in  me  that  I  venture  to 
point  out  to  him  that,  in  his  index,  he  has  used  the  word  revolu- 
tionary in  such  a  way  as  to  provoke  disastrous  conclusions.  It  is 
not  befitting  in  the  erudite  artist,  who  in  consequence  of  the 


(34) 

of  a  powerful  people  is  only  sketched  out,  you  will 
be  struck  by  a  great,  simple,  luminous  idea  directing 
its  learned  arrangements.  You  will  see  SCULP- 
TURE in  its  cradle,  growing,  waxing  strong,  per- 
fecting itself  from  age  to  age,  and  reaching  the  point 
to  which  the  CHISEL  OF  PIGALE  has  led  it.  .  . 

Each  century  has  a  sanctuary  which  contains  its 
experiments  or  its  masterpieces.  Let  us  hope  that 
in  the  end  this  plan,  as  grand  as  it  is  simple,  may 
develop  still  more  grandly,  and  that,  all  national 
predilections  being  renounced,  the  masterpieces  of 
ancient  peoples  and  of  neighboring  nations  may  be 
placed  beside  those  of  the  natives  of  the  soil. 

What  delightful  moments  the  librarian  must  have 
passed  in  the  bosom  of  public  libraries  and,  above 
all,  of  the  'Bibliothèque  Nationale  !'  (  ^  )  What  a  pleas- 
ing ecstasy  must  have  captivated  his  senses  !  What 


Revolution  finds  himself  clothed  with  a  sort  of  priesthood  in  the 
liberal  arts,  to  insinuate  that  the  Revolution  and  its  friends  con- 
spired against  the  fine  arts. 

(  1  )  Rue  de  la  Loi  (  formerly  Rue  Richelieu  ).  A  painful  feel- 
ing has  taken  possession  of  me  w^henever  I  have  left  this  library, 
seeing  the  ease  with  which  this  superb  monument  may  be 
destroyed  by  fire.  The  police  and  safety  regulations  adopted  by 
the  late  Directory  are  insufficient. 

Isolate  this  sacred  temple  ;  let  a  colonnaded  enclosure,  porticoes 
preceded  by  alleys  of  trees,  by  guard-houses,  by  arenas  and 
gymnasia  for  bodily  exercises,  announce  and  realize  the  broad 
views  of  a  perfected  government  ;  or  else,  fear  the  fury  of  a  new 
Erostratus  ! 


(35) 

useful  reflections  he  must  have  made  upon  the  meas- 
ureless reach  of  the  human  mind  ! 

Place  on  the  loftiest  summit  of  the  proud  Alps  a 
Buff  on,  or  a  Buonaparte  ;  and,  if  possible,  let  your 
soul  identify  itself  with  his  soul,  in  order  to  enjoy 
to  the  full  the  vast  and  magnificent  spectacle  that 
unrolls  itself  to  his  gaze!  Verdant  plains  where 
numerous  herds  are  pasturing;  mountain  crests 
covered  with  eternal  snows;  hamlets,  villages, 
towns,  cities,  countries,  empires,  governed  by  differ- 
ent laws  and  usages  ;  ancient  forests  and  dim  val- 
leys ;  rocks  resting  upon  the  brink  of  the  most  ter- 
rific precipices  ;  cavernous  dens  where  the  bird  of 
prey  hides  his  fierce  habits  and  his  hatred  for  the 
light  ;  groves  of  fig  trees,  of  orange  trees,  of  lemon 
trees,  where  birds  of  varied  and  brilliant  plumage 
incessantly  salute  and  celebrate  the  beauties  of  the 
dawning  day  and  of  the  sun  sinking  below  the 
horizon  :  such  are  the  most  striking  beauties  that 
will  quicken  the  thoughts  of  the  philosophic 
observer  whom  we  have  set  in  the  centre  of  so 
many  marvels. 

But  however  sublime  this  spectacle  may  be,  how 
narrow  and  circumscribed  it  is  by  comparison  with 
the  one  that  absorbs  the  enlightened  man  who  has 
directed  the  arrangement  of  a  bibliographical  repos- 
itory and  is  acquainted  with  all  its  riches  !  How  all 
the  arts  of  human  industry  unfold  to  his  eyes  the 


(36) 

secrets  of  their  mechanism  !  How  all  the  physical, 
moral,  religious,  political,  and  philosophical  revolu- 
tions of  our  globe  succeed  one  another  !  How  the 
nations  are  born,  grow  to  maturity,  flourish,  and 
fall  into  decadence  !  How  the  divine  language  of 
the  Homers,  Virgils,  Voltaires,  seems  to  transport 
him  to  a  celestial  sphere  !  How  the  thunderous  and 
persuasive  voice  of  a  Demosthenes,  a  Cicero,  a 
Mirabeau,  compels  the  attention  of  the  surrounding 
universe!  How  he  beholds  Reaumur  and  Buffon 
recording  and  painting,  under  the  dictation  of 
Nature,  the  habits  of  all  living  things  from  the 
republic  of  the  laborious  bee  to  the  isolated  horde 
of  the  monstrous  elephant,  from  the  brilliant  tribes 
of  the  butterfly  that  lightly  caresses  the  flowers  to 
the  innumerous  families  that  soar  above  the  storms  ! 
How  he  beholds  Archimedes  taking  his  lever  in 
hand  and  preparing  to  displace  the  globe  on  which 
we  live  ! 

It  is  true  that  not  everything  suggests  to  him 
grand  and  agreeable  ideas,  and  that  the  errors  of  the 
mind,  like  the  transgressions  of  the  heart,  do  not 
form  the  least  voluminous  part  of  bibliography. 
Thus  precipices,  the  aspect  of  which  makes  one 
tremble,  arid  rocks,  poisons  side  by  side  with  heal- 
ing herbs,  and  serpents  hidden  under  grass  and 
flowers,  have  offered  themselves  to  the  gaze  of  our 
observer.    But  as  he  quickly  turns  his  attention 


(37) 

toward  the  more  satisfactory  points  of  his  vast 
horizon,  so  Hkewise  the  Hbrarian  hastens  there 
where  the  aged  Theocritus,  Virgil,  or  Gesner  gives 
forth  the  sweet  sounds  of  his  pipe,  here  where  an 
Anacreon,  a  Tibullus,  a  Horace,  a  Chauheu,  a  Ber- 
nard, softly  sings  the  verses  that  amorous  Erato 
inspires,  or,  farther  again,  where  Lucian  and  Apu- 
lius,  Swift  and  Sterne,  Rabelais,  Montesquieu, 
Lesage,  and  Marmontel  enchant  those  who  harken 
to  their  witty  conversations  and  their  allegorical 
lessons. 

To  procure  for  itself  solid  pleasures  a  cultivated 
spirit  does  not  confine  itself  to  rapid  surveys;  it 
subjects  its  meditations  to  a  methodical  variety. 
This  useful  method  should  result,  at  least  I  think 
so,  from  the  plan  which  I  propose  for  the  classifica- 
tion of  my  bibliographical  collection. 

From  the  heroic  times  where  we  place  the  first 
rivulets  of  knowledge,  the  first  essays  of  arts  and 
of  talents,  down  to  our  own  day,  including  in  the 
heroic  period  the  obscure  centuries  with  which  the 
Chinese,  the  Indians,  the  Egyptians,  Assyrians,  and 
Chaldaeans  compose  their  early  history — this  long 
interval  I  divide  into  fourteen  epochs  noteworthy 
for  bibliography  : 


(38) 

FIRST  EPOCH 

Homer,  the  father  of  poets  and  the  marvel  of  his 
century,  is  the  first  to  present  himself  in  this  great 
vista. 

SECOND  EPOCH 

Alexander  the  great,  revenging  Greece,  pro- 
tecting and  enriching  the  fine  arts,  but  oppressing 
liberty. 

THIRD  EPOCH 

Paulus  ^milius,  transporting  to  Rome  the 
treasures  of  Perseus  and  notably  the  library  of 
Macedonia. 

FOURTH  EPOCH 

Augustus,  surrounded  by  the  fine  arts,  command- 
ing for  forty  years  all  the  known  world. 

FIFTH  EPOCH 

Marcus  Aurelius,  seating  philosophy  upon  the 
throne  of  the  Caesars. 

SIXTH  EPOCH 

Omar  I,  the  fanatical  conqueror,  burning  the 
famous  library  of  Alexandria  and  wishing  to  substi- 
tute for  all  bibliographical  riches  the  Koran  alone. 


(39) 

SEVENTH  EPOCH 

Charlemagne,  contending  with  a  monastic  lamp 
against  the  thick  shadows  of  his  century  and  of  those 
that  followed. 

EIGHTH  EPOCH 

Gutenberg,  in  concert  with  Faust  and  Schoffer, 
creating  typographic  art,  with  the  aid  of  which  we 
have  so  many  times  centupled  the  resources  of 
bibliography. 

NINTH  EPOCH 

Francis  I  and  Leo  X,  bringing  about  the  renais- 
sance of  the  fine  arts. 

TENTH  EPOCH 

Richelieu,  conversing  in  regard  to  learning  with 
the  first  forty  fathers  of  the  French  Academy. 

ELEVENTH  EPOCH 

Louis  XIV,  proudly  offering  to  the  celebrated  men 
of  Greece  and  Rome  rivals  worthy  of  these  famous 
republics. 

TWELFTH  EPOCH 

Voltaire,  scrawling  on  the  walls  of  the  Bastille 
the  first  drafts  of  the  Henriade. 


(40) 

THIRTEENTH  EPOCH 

Voltaire,  crowned  at  Paris,  descending  into  the 
tomb  at  the  age  of  eighty-four. 

FOURTEENTH  EPOCH 

As  the  thirteenth  epoch  should  include  the  immor- 
tal annals  of  the  Revolution,  nothing  in  which 
should  be  confounded  with  ordinary  events,  I  think 
that  it  should  be  brief  and  should  terminate  with  the 
end  of  this  Revolution,  which  astounded  the  world 
and  must  some  day  ameliorate  its  condition.  Thus 
may  the  fourteenth  epoch  entitle  itself  in  this 
manner  ! 

Buonaparte,  friend  of  the  arts  and  of  scholars, 
consolidating  the  French  Republic  and  giving  peace 
to  Europe. 

Once  I  have  formed  the  chronological  framework 
of  my  bibliography,  I  pass  to  the  classification  of 
subjects, putting  in  a  uniform  order,  which  embraces 
successively  all  my  epochs,  the  various  subjects  and 
the  authors  who  have  treated  of  them. 

In  the  gallery  containing  a  given  epoch  and  a 
given  subject  the  prose  writers  have  their  shelves 
distinct  from  those  of  the  poets  ;  and  so  it  is  with 
originals  and  translations,  with  pamphlets  and 
bound  volumes,  with  printed  books  and  manu- 
scripts.   This  is  the  only  sacrifice  of  the  sort  that  I 


(41) 

make  in  favor  of  appearances,  for  no  such  detail  as 
the  neatness  of  bindings  or  the  form  of  editions,  it 
seems  to  me,  should  turn  the  director  away  from 
the  order  that  he  has  begun  to  adopt. 

His  shelves  are  prepared,  his  galleries  distributed, 
according  to  epochs;  and,  like  the  spirit  which,  in 
the  system  of  the  Hebrews,  disembroiled  the  chaos 
of  the  world,  the  director,  placed  in  the  midst  of 
bibliographical  treasures  confusedly  scattered, 
assigns  to  each  author  and  to  each  of  his  works  the 
sphere  which,  by  his  intelligence,  he  himself  has 
created  in  the  literary  world. 

The  order  of  subjects  that  I  propose  is  not  the 
same  as  that  adopted  by  the  learned  men  who  have 
classified  and  generalized  knowledge,  but  I  have 
based  it,  in  so  far  as  I  have  thought  it  possible  to  do 
so,  upon  the  birth  and  progress  of  the  arts  and  of 
civilization.  I  have  also  approximated  to  the  order 
established  in  most  of  the  national  Gymnasia,  con- 
secrated to  the  instruction  of  youth. 

FIRST  DIVISION 

AGRICULTURE 
Who  could  dispute  the  right  of  Agriculture  to  that 
first  rank  which  I  give  it — Agriculture,  which  has 
given  birth  to  all  the  arts  and,  in  some  sort,  has  cre- 
ated nations  and  governments?  I  distinguish  it, 


(42) 

furthermore,  from  the  other  arts  because,  in  itself, 
it  is  a  more  abundant  bibhographical  source  than 
all  the  others  combined.  I  unite  it  with  COM- 
MERCE because  their  first  elements  have  always 
been  blended  together  at  the  birth  of  civilizations. 

SECOND  DIVISION 
LANGUA  GES  AND  GRAMMAR  IN  GENERAL 
What  a  prodigiously  extended  scale  the  human 
mind  traverses,  from  the  syllabary  of  childhood  to 
the  dictionaries  of  academies  and  of  the  ablest 
etymologists,  from  the  grammar  of  the  islanders  of 
the  South  Sea  to  the  logic  of  Port-Royal  and  the 
essay  of  Locke  on  human  understanding  ! 

THIRD  DIVISION 
THE  MECHANICAL  ARTS 

FOURTH  DIVISION 
THE  LIBERAL  ARTS 
There  we  shall  see  the  young  Débutade,  as  she 
traces  the  lineaments  of  her  lover  on  the  wall  that 
held  his  beloved  shadow,  bringing  to  birth  one  of 
the  first  of  the  fine  arts,  and,  in  modern  times, 
Gutenberg  inventing  the  most  marvelous,  per- 
haps, of  them  all,  the  one  by  which  the  thoughts  of 
the  learned  are  preserved  as  if  cast  in  a  mould. 


(43) 
FIFTH  DIVISION 
MATHEMATICS,    which    include  arithmetic, 
geometry,  and  mechanics. 

SIXTH  DIVISION 
BELLES-LETTRES,  which  are  composed  of  all 
branches  of  literature,  from  the  Gallic  triolet  to  the 
Iliad  of  Homer,  from  the  impetuous  harangues  of 
Demosthenes  to  the  humorous  allegories  of  Rabe- 
lais. 

SEVENTH  DIVISION 
COSMOGRAPHY,  which  comprises  the  learned 
and  useful  observations  of  astronomers  and  geo- 
graphers. 

EIGHTH  DIVISION 
NATURAL  HISTORY,  that  is,  zoology,  botany, 
and  mineralogy. 

NINTH  DIVISION 

CHEMISTRY  AND  PHYSICS 

In  this  division  is  to  be  found,  in  the  first  rank, 

MEDICINE  or  the  art  of  healing,  the  principles  of 

which  must  be  the  same  as  those  of  physics  (^),  at 

least  if  it  is  not  to  degenerate  into  charlatanism. 


(  1  )  It  is  with  good  reason  that,  among  certain  peoples,  phys- 
ics and  medicine  are  held  to  be  the  same  thing.  In  English, 
Physick  or  Physicks,  signifies  the  science  of  physics.  Physician 
means  a  medical  man  and  a  physicist. 


.   (44) 
TENTH  DIVISION 
THE  HISTOR  Y  OF  NA  TIONS.  The  narratives 
of  travelers  belong  in  this  division, 

ELEVENTH  DIVISION 

LEGISLA  TION.  Everything  that  pertains  to  the 
science  of  law,  of  government,  and  of  political 
economy,  should  be  included  in  this  division. 

TWELFTH  DIVISION 

MORALS 

Here  I  trace  a  line  of  demarcation  between  works 
that  treat  of  universal  morality  and  those  that  con- 
tain the  religious  morality  of  a  given  sect  and  the 
theology  of  all  peoples. 

THIRTEENTH  DIVISION 
PERIODICAL  WORKS 

This  class,  which  belongs  to  modern  times,  offers 
so  great  an  abundance  of  bibliographical  riches,  in 
so  great  a  variety  of  kinds,  that  I  think  it  needful  to 
assign  it  a  special  place  in  the  general  collection. 

Here  I  shall  doubtless  be  asked  what  place  in 
these  divisions  I  assign  to  authors  who  have  treated 
of  topics  belonging  m  more  than  one  division. 
What  place,  in  fact,  can  be  assigned  to  men  who 


(45) 

have  traversed  all  the  climes  of  the  literary  world, 
leaving  there  the  monuments  of  an  almost  universal 
genius  ?  I  consider  in  which  branch  such  authors 
have  most  brilliantly  excelled  and  I  attach  them  to 
the  division  that  contains  it,  but  at  the  end  of  each 
division  I  have  an  analytical  table  of  the  authors 
whose  works,  although  placed  upon  other  shelves, 
nevertheless  contain  some  productions  that  belong 
to  this  one. 

Thus  I  place  Aristotle  in  the  second  division,  at 
the  head  of  the  masters  of  dialectics,  but  the  sixth 
division  in  the  alphabetical  table  recalls  his  poetics 
and  his  rhetoric,  the  eighth  his  history  of  animals, 
and  the  twelfth  his  morals. 

In  the  same  way  our  immortal  Voltaire,  placed,  as 
an  epic  poet,  in  the  sixth  division,  leaves  in  all  the 
others  monuments  of  his  happy  fecundity. 


THIRD  SECTION 

DUTIES  OF  A  LIBRARIAN 

Finally,  the  librarian,  imbued  with  the  knowledge, 
as  varied  as  it  is  broad,  which  his  functions  demand, 
after  establishing  in  his  scientific  collection  the 
order  that  we  have  merely  sketched,  must  day  by 
day  remind  himself  of  the  important  duties  that 
philosophy  and  patriotism  demand  of  him. 


(46) 

He  owes  himself  to  the  public  and,  especially,  to 
the  throng  of  true  amateurs  who  will  find  in  him  a 
talking  library,  who  will  draw  more  aid  from  his 
vast  and  obliging  erudition  than  from  his  systematic 
registers,  his  alphabetical  shelves,  his  numbered 
series. 

He  owes  himself  to  the  inquisitive  young,  eager 
for  instruction,  for  whom  he  will  be  a  sure  and 
affable  guide,  leading  them  toward  the  purest  and 
most  accessible  founts. 

He  should  be,  for  the  professors  of  the  different 
schools  of  his  Department,  a  useful  colleague,  an 
enlightened  friend,  a  permanent  counsellor  working 
in  concert  with  them  for  the  success  of  public 
instruction. 

He  owes  himself,  above  all,  to  the  prosperity  of 
his  Department,  all  the  riches  and  resources  of 
which  will  be  known,  will  be  almost  familiar,  to  him. 

Doubtless,  there  is  no  longer  on  French  soil  a 
place  which  has  not  been  vivified  by  some  tutelary 
genius,  which,  if  a  mythological  allegory  must  be 
borrowed,  has  not  its  pénates  or  local  divinities. 

Nièvre  (  ^  ),  has  she  not  good  reason  to  glorify  her- 
self upon  the  celebrated  men  whom  she  has  pro- 
duced, and  could  the  librarian,  without  reproach, 


(  1  )  I  could  not  here  speak  of  all  the  Departments  without 
falling  into  tiresome  repetitions,  but  I  owe  this  tribute,  as  a  mark 
of  preference,  to  the  one  that  witnessed  my  birth. 


(47) 

fail  to  procure  the  works  of  his  fellow-citizens  ?  (  '  ) 
Thus  we  shall  see  appearing  in  the  temple  of 
bibliography  of  Nièvre  :  GUY  COQUILLE,  editor 
and  able  commentator  upon  the  customs  of  our 
ancestors;  ADAM  BILLAUT,  the  poet-carpenter, 
who  has  sung  so  jovially  the  orgies  of  friendship  ; 
JEAN  BERRYAT,  a  physician  as  able  as  he  was 
modest  and  estimable  ;  ROGER  DEFILES,  in  whom 
painters,  authors,  and  men  of  business  may  find  a 
guide  and  a  model  ;  LE  PRESTRE  DE  VA  UBAN, 
the  philosophical  and  republican  warrior  to  whom 
France  owes  her  most  impregnable  fortifications  ; 
BUSSY-RABUTIN,  satirical  writer  and  unfortu- 
nate courtier;  RABEAU-LA-CHAUSSADE,  the 
Vulcan  of  Nièvre  ;  BROTIER,  continuator  and  suc- 
cessful rival  of  Tacitus  ;  NEE  DE  LA  ROCHELLE, 
author  of  a  history  of  his  country  and  of  several 
romances;  ROBERT-LE-JEUNE.  one  of  the  first 
aeronauts;  THE  MANCINI,  and  notably  the 
former  (  and  last  )  duke  of  Nivernois,  worthy  rival 
of  Lafontaine  and  of  Horace. 

Familiar  with  all  kinds  of  knowledge,  the  libra- 
rian will,  if  necessary,  join  to  the  bibliography  of  his 
Department  a  cabinet  of  medals  and  antiquities. 


(  1  )  In  most  Departmental  libraries  one  would  seek  in  vain 
for  the  complete  works  of  native  writers.  Yet  a  moderate  sum 
would  have  procured  for  amateurs  this  agreeable  possession. 


(48) 

geographical  collections,  a  museum  of  arts  and  of 
natural  history,  and  the  archives  of  legislation. 
Everywhere  he  will  carry  the  spirit  of  order  and 
enlightenment  that  has  presided  over  the  arrange- 
ment of  his  library. 

What  resources  a  library  wisely  arranged  and 
directed,  and  nourished  with  all  the  riches  that  ex- 
tend the  limits  of  human  knowledge,  will  offer  to  the 
artists  of  a  Department,  to  the  friends  of  letters,  to 
intelligent  administrators  and  good  citizens,  to  tal- 
ents of  every  sort  !  What  a  useful  and  interesting 
correspondence  the  librarian  will  carry  on  with  the 
learned  men  of  his  country  and,  perhaps,  of  all 
Europe  ! 

It  is  thus  that,  by  pouring  upon  the  Department 
of  Nièvre,  together  with  the  light  of  philosophy,  the 
seeds  of  all  industries  and  all  sciences,  one  may 
vivify  this  naturally  fecund  soil  which,  for  so  long, 
has  called  for  the  hand  of  the  cultivator  and  the 
thought  of  the  philosopher. 

A^.  B.  This  Essay  will  be  followed  by  a  character- 
istic history  of  Bibliography  among  all  nations, 
from  the  quipus  of  America  to  the  immortal  collec- 
tions of  the  Encyclopedia. 


RETURN     LIBRARY  SCHOOL  LIBRARY 

TO^  Room  133  -  Main  Library         642-2253 


LOAN  PERIOD  1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

my  2  3 198^ 

) 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 
FORM  NO.  DD  18,  45m  676  BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


/ 


298970 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNIA  LIBRARY 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


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